Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grandma, Grandpa, and Whitney came to visit us for Thanksgiving. It has been fun to give them a peak at the kids schools and soak in some quality time together. There has been lots of dress up, pretend play, borrowing of the IPad, yummy meal.....

Lance was the official Turkey cooker again this year and he did a great job. The house smelled so good leading up to our mid afternoon meal. After eating, and a little rest we took everyone on a quick trip over to the Bellagio to check out the garden and the water show. I think everyone really enjoyed it.

We have much to be thankful for from the past 12 months- especially things like Miss Zuri coming to our family, greater clarity in the Rori story and particularly her school, Kai's experience in full day K, Lance's work and school working together well, and really so many other wonderful gifts.

















Wednesday, November 23, 2011

6 Months Old



We can't believe that Zuri is 6 months old. She is such a sweet little thing. In the last few weeks she has been so easy going and happy. She grins at everyone she sees, is so patient when she is being lugged around from thing to thing, and has been a lot more content about playing on her own for longer spells. She's had a few later than usual bedtimes lately because she is just too much fun and cute when we are making her laugh and babble away. This past month she has tried out a lot more new tastes and is starting to take off more on food. She is also much more aware of things around her. She adores Kai and Rori and can often be heard laughing with them in the back of the car. This age is soooo much fun! We just can't kiss her enough!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Happy Birthday to Lance


Happy Birthday to a great Daddy and Husband! Lance is doing a pretty amazing job balancing lots of different hats these days. We are very proud of him and grateful for all that he does for our family. We love you Lance!

Monday, November 14, 2011

November Get Away

The kids had school off last Thursday and Friday so we decided that we should take a little get away before things get crazy again with school finals and holiday activities. We debated what to do and finally happily agreed to meet up in St. George with Lance's parents for a few days. They were so nice to drive down and spend some time with us. We had a great time being with them and having a little time away. My history with St. George is passing through on the way to SLC and Easter where we have our traditional things we like to do. So, this was a fun trip because we got to do a few new things along with hitting a few of our regular favorites. The kids had a blast swimming in the indoor pool, checking out real dinosaur foot prints, doing a mini hike in beautiful fall colored Zion to Weeping Wall, playing with Grandpa's new Ipad, checking out some historic sights, hitting some golf balls with grandpa and Dad, and just getting lots of love and attention from grandma and grandpa. An added plus was we got to see the Wilkinsons who had just gotten in to town for a quick lunch on our way out of St. George. It was fun to catch a glimpse of baby Connor who is now 3 months old. We had a great time and are looking forward to our next trip there already. It is amazing how we can drive for 1 1/2 hours and be in such a different place.

On Our Dinosaur Prints Hunt:





*Rori looking a little concerned that me might encounter an actual dinosaur.


*Kai's left hand is in one of the prints.







Checking Out an Old Historic Fort:








Zion Extra Beautiful with the Fall Colors:




On the Way Home



This is what I saw when I looked back in the car the other day on the way home from school. She has hot lunch most days but we pack her a lunch box with a few snacks that usually get eaten on the way home. This girl sure makes me laugh.

Soccer 2011





We just wrapped up another season of soccer for Kai. He had a good time and really seemed to like the kids on his team. Every year we debate if we should sign him up or not since soccer can be rather dominating of time, but I'm glad we did.

This year was sort of a different experience. They place kids on teams based on their birthdays so Kai was one of the youngest on a team made up of 6 year olds (by the end of September), 7 year olds, and even some 8 year olds who had birthdays during the season I guess). That seemed like a HUGE age difference to me. Some of the kids just looked and seemd SOOO much older. With that said when the lined up by height to pass out jerseys Kai was 2nd to tallest on his team so he probably looks older to most people anyway.

Despite being one of the younger ones Kai did really well. For most of the season he and the tallest/ oldest kid in the team picture were the only ones who scored goals. This was really a change for Kai from past seasons where he might occasionally score but for the most part seemed to be more of a defensivly minded player. It was fun seeing this light switch turn on in him with this new offensive determination. It was also interesting to look over at the field next to his and see some kids in his school class born after September playing on a smaller field at a much different level of play. It seems like if he wants to play sports later on in life in school this has the opportunity to be a large confidence booster for him which we think is great.

As you can see he was back on a red jersey team this year. So far he's been on 2 red teams and 2 orange teams. There are several other colors in the leagues he's played in but for some reason he's always ended up with one of these. This year he was on the team named "The Mini-Rebels".

It was super hot, and then super cold and windy, and then just about right the last 2games. So it goes in Vegas. Lance spent most of the games watching from the sides while kicking an extra ball back and forth with Rori. She has already gotten quite good at dribbling the ball while running at full speed. I spent most of the games trying to shield Zuri from the sun or the wind. Zuri seemed to enjoy the games though- or maybe it was just all the people cheering, kids running, and this stuff called grass that we don't see much of here in Vegas.

Our good camera ended up being in the shop most of soccer season so these are taken at picture day before practice one night with our dinky old camera. Here is Kai with a few buddies from the team.



Sam and Kai are in the same Primary class together at Church. They just moved in so we got to know them at soccer which was fun. On a random side note his Mom works full time as a sign language interpretor. We've had some interesting talks about hearing at practices as you might imagine. Funny how you get certain people placed in your life at precise times.


This picture is of Kai with his new friend Lucas. We had never met Lucas before but after the boys hit it off at practice we came to learn that his family also meets in our Church building but at another time. We're going to have to get the boys together sometime to play because Lucas was very sweet.

So all in all I think Kai had a good experience, developled some more skills in soccer, and made some new friends. Now we will happily welcome back some soccer free Saturdays (and practice nights) for a time.